Where Zombie Miners Lurk

Kerianne Sproule, Swerve10.25.2013

Clearly worked to the bone, a lost miner keeps watch over the old, abandoned wooden coal tipple and the secrets it contains. Does one dare ascend the ramp and enter the belly of the aging structure behind him?Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

With volunteers having to fill 150 roles to make the former mine come alive for Halloween, many are performing double duty. Here, zombie miner Jay Russell places spooky props along the shadowy interior of the coal tipple.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

As night falls, a motley crew of the undead emerges from their resting places to torment all who dare venture near the Haunted Atlas Coal Mine in East Coulee, Alta. In reality, they’re fun-loving volunteers from across Alberta, a group of approximately 70 who include (from left to right) Jim Pearson, Kelly Eddy, Megan McLauchlin (sack on head), Aaron Redditt, Warren Nicholls (chainsaw), Matt Mohan and Jay Russell.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

Clearly worked to the bone, a lost miner keeps watch over the old, abandoned wooden coal tipple and the secrets it contains. Does one dare ascend the ramp and enter the belly of the aging structure behind him?Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

The great mistress of misery and woe (a.k.a. the event organizer), Kelly Eddy comes unzipped during the month of October, pulling out all the stops to give the Atlas Coal Mine National Historic Site a terrifying ambience for All Hallows’ Eve.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

Spooky props set up in the Wash House during Haunted Atlas Coal Mine Big Boo.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

Things may get a little touchy-feely as it’s all hands on deck up in the tipple.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

Spooky props set up in the Wash House during Haunted Atlas Coal Mine Big Boo.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

There are warnings as you approach the Atlas Coal Mine that suggest you turn back.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

In the light of day, the Atlas Coal Mine is part of Alberta's history. But once the sun goes down they scare up something a little different.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

If death possessed a wide, skeletal grin and a photogenic figure, many believe it would look just like this. Beware the scythe-wielding Grim Reaper, gliding through the shadows of the Canadian Badlands, harvesting souls to roam the mine for eternity.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

If death possessed a wide, skeletal grin and a photogenic figure, many believe it would look just like this. Beware the scythe-wielding Grim Reaper, gliding through the shadows of the Canadian Badlands, harvesting souls to roam the mine for eternity.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

In the light of day, the Atlas Coal Mine is part of Alberta's history. But once the sun goes down they scare up something a little different.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

Gather ’round as volunteer Becky Kowalchuk relays messages from the spirit world during a mock séance in the mine office.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

Gather ’round as volunteer Becky Kowalchuk relays messages from the spirit world during a mock séance in the mine office.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

Sure, they’re props, but they provide a chilling glimpse into a time not so long ago when coal was king and Drumheller Valley was home to bustling boom towns.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

Sure, they’re props, but old photographs like the ones displayed in the washhouse provide a chilling glimpse into a time not so long ago when coal was king and Drumheller Valley was home to bustling boom towns.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

Sure, they’re props, but they provide a chilling glimpse into a time not so long ago when coal was king and Drumheller Valley was home to bustling boom towns.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

Sure, they’re props, but they provide a chilling glimpse into a time not so long ago when coal was king and Drumheller Valley was home to bustling boom towns.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

Sure, they’re props, but they provide a chilling glimpse into a time not so long ago when coal was king and Drumheller Valley was home to bustling boom towns.Leah Hennel
/ Swerve

Blown up in explosions, smothered in collapsing shafts, crushed by heavy carts, the ghosts of coal miners are said to linger at the Atlas Coal Mine Historic Site just outside the tiny town of East Coulee. There, a short 15-minute drive from Drumheller, a tall wooden structure looms against the starkly beautiful backdrop of the Badlands. It is the last wooden coal tipple in Canada, protected, with the outbuildings and tunnels that surround it, as a national historic site and a reminder of the dangerous and dirty days of Canadian coal mining.

Dating back to 1936, the height of the coal-mining boom in Canada, the Atlas Coal Mine saw thousands of men pass through it before it closed. Over 200 perished on the job. Today, the site provides the ideal setting for haunting tales of disappeared miners and lingering spirits every October when it plays host to two Halloween-themed events held over two weekends.

The more docile Little Boo event, which takes place in broad daylight and is designed for children, takes small, costumed participants on a lighthearted stroll through the site. It includes a ride on a battery-powered 1936-era train and a visit to an underground tunnel. The other event, Big Boo, is reserved for more courageous souls over age nine. The events, now in their ninth year, raise funds for the preservation of buildings on the site.

For most of the year, Kelly Eddy is program director at the historic site, but in October she morphs into the “director of misery and woe,” the mastermind behind the annual Haunted Atlas Coal Mine event. “In the fall and winter the site can be a very solitary place,” she says. “We’re far from the city, so there isn’t a lot of light here, and [the setting] has a certain air about it at this time of year. It’s like it was made for this event.” Eddy oversees a contingent of 75 volunteers who delight in turning the site into a live set worthy of a horror film, dressing up as zombie coal miners and hiding in dark corners—all in the name of scaring the bejeezus out of thrill-seekers.

Just after twilight on the evening of Big Boo, visitors are divided into groups of five to seven people, given a single flashlight and sent off, on foot, to navigate a darkened route. The path leads guests into spooky outbuildings, including the washhouse, where the miners would begin and finish their shifts. Jackets and hats dangle from the rafters on hooks, and here one may find psychic (played by a volunteer) calling on the undead. Bonfires and séances add to the unsettling experience. Continuing through the rough autumn grasses, and along the dusty pathways, guests climb a long wooden ramp into the heights of the coal tipple, where darkly dressed volunteers wait to jump out at them or, perhaps worse, reach for their feet.

Just as heart rates begin to settle, the terrifying roar of a chainsaw cuts through the quiet prairie night, its echoes reverberating off the empty buildings….

Putting Halloween pranks aside, the Atlas Coal Mine has a rich history—and a long track record of puzzling paranormal events.

Between 1911 and 1979 there were 139 mines registered in the Drumheller valley, making the region the illustrious boomtown of its day. “Mines absolutely dominated life in every little community in the valley. Every time a load of coal came through that tipple, clouds of dust would come drifting over town and if you’d just done a load of laundry, you had to take it off the line,” says Linda Digby, the historical site’s executive director. “And there was a light on the top of the tipple, and when it was on, it meant you had work. The entire community’s fortune was linked to that light.”

Though this light at the Atlas coal mine (the last of the area mines to close) was permanently extinguished in 1979 after natural gas had almost entirely replaced coal as a means of heating homes, tales of unexplained activities on the site provide unsettling hints that not everyone was ready to part with the place.

Digby and Eddy agree that bizarre things have occurred over the years since the mine ceased operations. So many, in fact, that a master list is now being kept of all sightings, which provides fodder for the mine’s “ghost tours” in July and August.

One such eerie event happened only

recently, after two volunteers spent the day decorating the washhouse in preparation for Halloween. At the end of the day, upon closing of the site, the intrigued volunteers left a recording device in the room they had been decorating. At some point after nightfall, long after the site had been deserted, the device picked up the loud bang of a door closing followed by three footsteps.

If that doesn’t stir your phasmophobia (fear of ghosts), consider this: on one of the regular mine tours, a visitor climbing up the long, dim conveyor gallery reported being forcefully shoved from behind. After she regained her footing, she looked behind her and could see no one.

“Ghosts never really satisfy your desire to know the whole story,” says Digby, who adds that a number of paranormal investigators have tried over the years. Two years ago an intuitive was exploring the washhouse and could see the ghostly outlines of three women, who, by their dress and demeanour, appeared to be prostitutes. With some investigation, it was determined that on payday at the mine, working girls would turn tricks in the attic of the building.

Coincidence?

“There are a few known ghosts here who I think help us out on Halloween,” says Eddy.

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